Finding Cade (Dream Catcher Series Book 1)

by Bernice Layton

  Shit. He shot me! That son of a bitch shot me!

  Groaning, he grabbed the front of his dress shirt and was sickened to see blood gushing between his fingers. His footsteps faltered, but he pushed on, stumbling his way toward a railing. He didn’t know what was on the other side, and he didn’t care if it meant getting away from his pursuers.

  Just then, a sudden flash of movement in his peripheral vision caused him to stop abruptly.

  What the hell is that?

  He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and she was now in front of him…a woman? Knowing he was losing blood and growing weaker, he also knew he didn’t have time to linger and dwell on the trickery going on with his eyes. He took off running again, and like the situation on the rooftop of The Sullivan Hotel, he was out of options. He had to take a leap again, literally. As the edge loomed closer, he stretched out his hand and felt the cold metal and, without a second’s delay, lifted his feet from the ground and swung over the edge.

  With dense fog swirling around him, his arm caught onto the base of the railing for several seconds. When he heard gravel crunching beneath the boots of the two men, he let go and began a slow free-fall into darkness below. His need to escape overrode his fear of heights, but something forced him to look up, so he did.

  It was that woman again. “Aw, damn,” he groaned, sensing he was about to pass out.

  Those were the last words he uttered before his body hit freezing cold water. Cade couldn’t have known that the drop was nearly fifty feet into the murky water below.

  ***

  Isaac

  Several hours later, at seven in the morning, Congressman Roy Owen impatiently paced the plush carpet in the sitting room of his penthouse suite at The Sullivan Hotel.

  Three times he had listened as his Ted Baxter, his aide, and his four security specialists explain how his secured hotel suite had been broken into and how their laptop computers had been compromised and data stolen.

  “Enough,” he shouted, putting an end to their useless explanations. “None of that matters. What matters now is that I get that information back, and I want the man who so brazenly broke in here and stole it. Do you hear me?” His deep voice bellowed, resonating to the tri-ceiling of the luxurious suite befitting a congressman.

  The four men and one woman standing before him were smart enough to keep their mouths shut, dreading that the congressman's wrath at them individually.

  One man stood apart—the congressman’s private director of security, Isaac Bishop. He didn't cower under the man’s furious rant. When Owen strode across the room to him and demanded an explanation, Isaac stood his ground. He wasn’t frightened of anyone, least of all the sniveling, thieving, adulterous, lying son of a bitch now standing in front of him.

  Isaac was positive that, although livid, Owen was holding his temper in check, so he kept his jet-black, unreadable eyes focused on a point just beyond the man’s receding hairline.

  Standing at six-foot-one and weighing no less than 285 pounds of muscle, Isaac Bishop was a formidable and imposing figure. He took the praise the Politician heaped on him for his ability to make even the smallest of problems disappear. Owen trusted him implicitly, and he didn’t have to ask questions about how a problem was solved.

  “Talk to me. Give me the rundown again,” Roy Owen said.

  Isaac studied the man quietly before speaking. He wasn't going to sugarcoat the situation because that wasn’t his style. Truthfully, Isaac couldn’t wait to talk to his two hired hands.

  All they had to do was snatch the man they had followed to the bus stop, take him to the warehouse, search him for anything resembling a computer storage device, question him, then kill him. But no, those two idiots did something because when he’d driven out to the warehouse, it was spotless. His instinct told him they’d screwed up a simple order. He didn’t know what yet, but he sure as hell was going to find out.

  There was no doubt the man seen leaving the hotel was the same man he’d spotted last night on the surveillance camera taking the elevator up to the tenth floor. He was with a woman who was all over him, and now Isaac realized it had been a ploy to give the impression they were going up to a room. A further check of the surveillance cameras had shown the same man taking a service elevator to the penthouse suite that was supposed to have been locked. Unfortunately, the service elevator didn’t have security cameras, so the man disappeared out of sight, that was, until he was identified by a hotel housekeeper stocking linens at the end of the hall. She had identified him as the man she’d seen going into the congressman‘s suite twenty minutes earlier. She had described him as a handsome black man—tall, fit, and good-looking with medium brown complexion and closely cropped hair. “Very good looking,” she’d repeated and smiled while crossing her legs.

  Isaac didn’t feel it necessary to mention, but secretly, he thought the man had balls to do what he’d done. He’d broken into a secured penthouse suite of a congressman and wiped every computer clean. Then he had escaped and made his way up to the rooftop, where he’d eluded capture by jumping off of a six-story building.

  With so many high-profile guests and dignitaries in attendance for the fundraiser, the ballroom and lobby were swarming with guests, security, and the media. But this man had laughed and sipped champagne right along with them, mocking Isaac’s team, despite their constant vigilance. They had to apprehend the thief who had stolen numerous files and damaged files, highly sensitive files, including his own. The thing that continued to stump Isaac was he couldn't figure out how the guy had done it.

  For the fourth time, he replayed in his mind the events of last night, frame by frame.

  The fundraiser had been in full swing. The press and media had positioned themselves for the best photo setup when the congressman came up onto the stage with the star athletes that had been carefully selected from twenty prestigious universities. Kicking off his reelection campaign with the movers and shakers of the political world, invited at $1,200 a plate, the congressman had worked the room like the pro he was.

  Isaac had positioned himself to the left of the stage to be closest to the congressman, yet he was still able to maintain a full view of the entire room. His hand-picked security team had been strategically placed throughout the room and near the exits for maximum coverage.

  Standing statue still, he silently blended into the background. His eyes moved constantly, scanning and memorizing every face, visually checking every badge, every purse, and every bag for anything that could pose a potential threat. At first, he watched the congressman, who was all smiles, mingling, laughing at one of the athlete’s jokes and slapping another on the back, basically doing what he did best, and nothing seemed out of place.

  But then something had stood out and captured his attention.

  Isaac had felt it. His internal alarm system had clanged that something was off. At first he couldn’t figure out what it was, but he was never wrong when he got that feeling. Never. It had kept him alive on more than one occasion, and he didn’t question it. He had surveyed the room, trying to figure out where the uneasy feeling was coming from, and everything seemed normal until his eyes circled had back to the congressman and the students. He zeroed in on the athletes, as he had done a mental count.

  He had examined every face and immediately realized one stood out from the rest. The guy was taller, more mature looking, somehow, and less awestruck than the other athletes. Isaac had gotten a strange vibe from him when he had seen the guy socializing earlier in the evening, but he’d had the necessary credentials to get into the fundraiser.

  There should have been twenty students in all since one athlete had been selected from twenty universities and all had been cleared by security and issued badges. That’s when Isaac did a double-take during the photo op, because after counting them, there were twenty-one athletes.

  He just thought the guy was trying to be in the photo. He’d presented a cocky grin as he tried to blend in with the athletes. Trained in all t
hings security and street smart, Isaac assessed the guy was slightly older, mid-thirties.

  Isaac recalled watching the athlete to the guy’s left turning and giving him a questioning look as if he didn’t know who he was. Isaac hadn’t wanted to corner the guy during the photo op. In a room full of media, he couldn't risk any problems or scandals. The fundraiser had to run as smooth as silk because too much had been riding on the success of the night.

  It was then the man caught and held Isaac’s gaze. He’d then tipped his hand in a mock salute as if to say, “Come get me.” Isaac took it as a personal challenge and slightly upped his chin in return, meaning, “Yeah, okay.” He had every intention of kicking that guy’s ass. He had sent an alert to his team of the man’s description and location via their two-way radios. The message had been to get and detain the man the second the photo shoot was over. But the man had gotten away from his team when they closed in on him, and now Isaac had to stand and listen to the congressman rant and rave about how incompetent his team was for letting that slick son of a bitch get away.

  “Isaac!”

  The congressman shouting his name snapped Isaac back to the present. “Sir, it appears the thief made his way up to the roof,” he reported as Owen glared at him. “He jammed the fire door shut with a steel pipe, preventing my team from following him. When we finally broke through the door, I discovered he had tethered a rope around one of the large air conditioners and scaled down the side of the building before landing on the patio canopy below. We spotted him, but it was too risky to fire down on him with passersby out on the sidewalk. He escaped on foot before my men could apprehend him at the hotel. Sir, I take full responsibility for that.”

  “Damn right you do, Isaac.” The congressman snorted in disgust before walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window with his hands clasped behind his back and staring out at the skyline. Everyone waited silently, not moving, nervous to see what the congressman would do next. After a few minutes, he sighed heavily and walked back to face Isaac, dismissing the rest of the team with a wave of his hand.

  Isaac watched his security team visibly sag with relief as they hurried out of the room. They would escape the congressman’s wrath, but it would be nothing compared to the hell he was going to give them later.

  Owen met Isaac’s eyes with an unwavering stare. “Did you get him, Isaac?”

  “Yes, sir. I had another team snatch the guy a few blocks away. There were no witnesses. They doped him, rolled him, but he was clean. He had nothing on him except three dollars.”

  “What was it the thief used to steal the files, Isaac?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I have my men checking it out now on the server end, but whatever he used was highly sophisticated and fast. It downloaded 516 files from all our computers in less than twenty minutes. That’s the length of time the housekeeper said he was in here.” Isaac watched Congressman Owen cross the room to the well-stocked bar, pour himself a shot of scotch from a decanter, and down it in one swallow. He poured a second drink and rubbed the glass across his forehead before gulping that one too.

  Isaac understood how he felt. They each had much to lose if the stolen information wound up in the wrong hands. Somebody had stolen incriminating information from him—from them—that could bury both of them. Yeah, Isaac was pissed off too. He was furious that he had been bested and had a nose thumbed in his face. Nobody got the best of him. Ever.

  His stomach churned, and an unfamiliar feeling settled over him when he realized all that was on his own laptop. It was indeed incriminating and well protected. It was chronological data, evidence he’d collected over the years of misdeeds committed by the congressman and by himself on behalf of the congressman. Proof of bribery, kickbacks, well-disguised accounts holding misappropriated funds, deadly “accidents,” had all been documented on the supposedly state-of-the-art, encrypted, un-hackable files that had all been swiped away in a matter of minutes. When he thought about what could happen if those files ended up in the wrong hands or turned over to the authorities…no, he couldn’t think about that now.

  Without turning around to face him, the congressman asked, “Was the order carried out to completion, at least?”

  “Yes and no,” Isaac replied, trying to recover some of his authority and dignity in the face of this disastrous situation. “My guys searched him thoroughly, and under their intense questioning, the thief refused to divulge where he had disposed of the files or who he was working for. They fired a round into his chest. He’d only gone three blocks down, but I still have men out searching every inch of the street between this hotel and the bus stop. If the thief stashed it, they’ll find it,” Isaac said, more convincingly than he felt, refusing to show any weakness in front of Owen. “My men chose a different location,” he continued. “They’re professionals, sir. Traffic was chaotic last night due to the fog, and police were re-routing traffic. But there was another ripple. The thief came to in the back of the truck.” Isaac went on to explain what the men told him and how they’d tossed the guy over a closed-off bridge. “The fog last night was a benefit. The job is done, and the body’s been dumped.”

  “Are you sure, Isaac?”

  “There’s a steep drop over the railing that borders that overpass. They made sure he won’t be resurfacing.”

  “Could there be a rescue or recovery operation?”

  “Neither, sir. They pulled the body from the water then weighed it down.” In that instant, Isaac’s eyes drifted beyond the congressman’s left shoulder. He spotted movement coming from the bedroom suite and sensed that Neva Owen, the congressman's wife of five years, had heard everything. When she opened the door wider, the look on her face confirmed she had heard, and she was neither frightened nor shocked.

  Sliding his eyes back to the congressman, Isaac couldn't help but notice the pulse jumping in the man neck. It always did when he was angry or backed into a corner. He was scared shitless, and Isaac knew it was a dangerous combination for this man. He also knew it was a turn-on for Owen, and Neva knew it as well. Isaac knew that’s why she’d opened the door. It was a signal that she was ready for her husband.

  This son of a bitch!

  When the congressman yanked off his bow tie and tossed back a shot of scotch, Isaac merely waited.

  “You know I don't like loose ends, and I trust you to take care of everything that needs to be done. Mr. Baxter has the financial payment for that service. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Isaac said, waiting for the next instruction to come.

  “Good. Take care of things in here before you leave,” Owen murmured, walking across the suite to the opened bedroom door, but he halted and turned back to Isaac. “Keep your ears open. That thief stole my files for a reason, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of my adversaries was behind it. Right now, that bastard Councilman Glen Walker is high on my list. Keep an eye on him too and do what has to be done should you feel it necessary, Isaac,” he said, pushing his bedroom door closed behind him.

  By “taking care of things in here,” Isaac understood what Owen meant. He had to get the computers out of the suite.

  It took Isaac less than ten minutes to load the already dismantled laptops into a large storage box he had previously brought up to the suite. He would take them to the incinerator and have them burned.

  As exhausted as he was, having been up all night dealing with this mess, Isaac couldn't get the arrogant, cocky thief out of his mind. There was something about the man that irritated the hell out of him, made him wonder if he’d ever had an encounter with the man before, like during one of his three prison stints. Isaac doubted he could remember any of his prison mates.

  When his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, he removed it and glanced at the caller ID. It was one of his hired hands, and it was time to pay them for services rendered. At least, that's what would be on the invoice Mr. Baxter had created.

  Before he answered the call, Isaac pulled up a weather app on his smart phone. It conf
irmed there had been heavy fog last night. Isaac also checked the traffic. There was no mention of re-routed traffic at the time his guys had driven the planned route. There was no accident reported on that road, either. Isaac’s instinct told him the men had screwed up. Even so, they still expected to be paid.

  “We’ll just see about that.”

  Suddenly his head snapped around, hearing the unmistakable sounds coming from the congressman’s bedroom.

  Neva.

  Isaac’s hand tightened around his cell phone, almost cracking the device. He fixed his eyes on the bedroom door. His face became a hardened mask as the grunts and moans emanating from the room filled him with anger and hatred for a woman he had once called his own. But it wasn’t just Neva…he hated the man she had sold herself to—Congressman Roy Owen.

  As the feelings of rage threatened to overwhelm him, Isaac turned on his heels, yanked up the box of laptops, and dumped them onto the luggage rack. When he pushed the rack out into the hall and left the suite, his face was a hard, angry mask, not his normal impassive expression.

  ***

  Isaac

  A short while later, Isaac strode into the warehouse located on the outskirts of DC, and like everything else, the isolated warehouse was owned by the congressman. Ownership was hidden in a dummy corporation that could never be traced back to Owen. But Isaac knew everything Owen’s dirty hands ever touched and where the bodies lay, literally.

  The two hired gunmen were sitting at the table drinking beer as heavy metal rock music blasted from a boom box nearby. When he was within eight feet of them, Isaac tossed the heavy satchel he’d brought in with him onto the table. He said nothing as he watched them grabbing at the satchel, knocking over their beer bottles and the boom box in their haste.

  “One hundred grand a piece, cash,” he said before turning to leave. Then he stopped and turned back around. “Say, what was the exit again to the bridge where you dumped the body?”